


Borrowed Moments

by Nenalata



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: F/M, Feel-Good Happy Days, First Time, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, War What War, Who Wants to Be Hoshido's Next Submissive Ninja Warrior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 15:20:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7762936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nenalata/pseuds/Nenalata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's never enough time for anything more than stolen moments together when they're in the middle of a war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Borrowed Moments

They’re about to march out for a skirmish when Mozu realizes her naginata could do with a quick sharpening. Silas is barking orders direct from Corrin, according to him, and everyone is abuzz with pre-battle excitement, and the whetstone keeps slipping out of her grasp.

Saizo is the one who finds her, of course. She’s by the mess hall, where no one else would think to look for a lost village girl, and Saizo sees her fumbling with the whetstone and bless her, she doesn’t do much more than startle and smile when he holds the naginata steady. As much as her new muscles can do for her fitness, they can’t give her a third arm, and she still grasps the weapon with such awkward uncertainty. It may get her killed one day, but he doesn’t say so, because she knows.

Instead, she sharpens the edge with speed and intensity. He watches his wife furrow her brow in concentration, the tip of her tongue peeking out between pursed lips, and the harsh _kreen-kreen_ of stone on steel doesn’t distract him enough from kneeling to the ground, closer to her face.

Mozu doesn’t pay attention. Good girl, intent on her task, because a blunt weapon is a useless one when the weapon in question is designed for stabbing. She knows better than he does what distraction can cost on the battlefield—

A sound of satisfaction, and she completes her work. She glances upwards where she last saw him, and the pleased expression on her face drops to pleased surprise when she sees him at eye level. And Saizo can’t help it, but the pink in her cheeks whenever she meets his gaze renders him insensible, and he pushes the naginata staff aside to cup her face in his gloved hands and kisses her.

Her lips are chapped and her tongue tastes like the toasted rice tea they’d shared only an hour ago, but the sighs and gasps that come from her throat when he sips from her mouth enflame his restrained passion. This is what it means to have something to protect, more than a country or a prince, although those things are important; it’s the return home to _this_ and to _her_ that make Saizo fight all the harder—

Silas calls for all soldiers, and Mozu pushes Saizo back and darts her eyes toward the too-close sound of the man’s voice. Her eyes are large, embarrassed, and Saizo smothers his human irritation at the interruption and rises from his kneel, holding out a hand to his wife and helping her stand as well. They have a battle to win, and now is not the time for the body’s desires.

He can’t help but note on the victory march back that it hasn’t been the time for such desires since he proposed.

* * *

 

They catch their moments when they can. Stolen, chaste kisses by the jade spring. Brushes and light touches when they both work the rice paddy. A hushed, heated encounter at the edge of camp when traveling: Mozu bites her lip, squeezes her eyes shut tight when he runs his teeth over the shell of her ear, and the night patrol walks a bit too close and they stop, adjust their clothes, and return to their own watch.

The nights are too public for lovemaking, or else they are too exhausted at the end of the day. Saizo regrets this aching lack only when they are interrupted. The days are too busy to dwell on much else. There’s a war on, after all, and little time for a newly married couple to celebrate their wedding in peace.

Besides, she…Mozu is still so small and breakable on the battlefield, and his dreams plague him more with thoughts of the spell he’s not there to take or the axe he’s not there to deflect than thoughts of how soft her skin must be in the yet untouched places underneath her armor. And perhaps he doesn’t notice as much as he should how she can carry more buckets of water to the bath in one trip now, how she doesn’t tremble as hard as she used to when faced with an opponent. She’s strong and Saizo is too focused on his own weaknesses to see it.

* * *

 

They’re moving their forces through familiar territory during a rare calm when it dawns on him. It doesn’t take more than one whiff of the air by the river for Saizo to know they’re close to his childhood home. Mozu is the one who mentions it to him first—she’d been talking with his brother and Kaze had apparently pointed out a familiar landmark. Saizo doesn’t think much of it at first, but Mozu’s dropping hints and the smile on his brother’s face at a joke Corrin cracks brings old memories to the surface, and before long he’s officially requesting leave for the honor of introducing his pink-faced wife to the village not far from where they’ll end up stopping for the day.

Kaze, no doubt, would like the opportunity as well, but he’s on guard at Hoshido Castle this evening and waves Mozu’s offers away. He’ll go the next day, if all remains peaceful.

And so it’s just the two of them, a married couple still shy after a month, heading down the path with the village below them. Saizo keeps an eye out for wyvern riders, pricks his ears at every gust of coastal breeze, and doesn’t notice Mozu fidgeting with her skirt, plucking at loose threads, until he feels her approach—slowly, as if she could take him by surprise.

He glances askance at the top of her head, brown hairs a little frizzy and the tips of her ears a little pink. She must know his attention is on her but she doesn’t meet his eyes. There’s a brush of fingers against his, and he looks away from her and slows his pace so she doesn’t bump into him.

But she brushes his fingers again, small strokes of lightly callused fingers against the tips of his own, against his gloved palms, and Mozu slides her hand into his. They walk in silence, the silence more pronounced now as he watches the sky more intently and listens to the village life _whoosh_ in on the breeze. Saizo isn’t looking at her and isn’t sure if she’s looking at him back, but he gives the small hand clasped in his a little squeeze, and the hand relaxes and her thumb slides along his glove and they enter his hometown a little less shyer for it.

* * *

 

His village isn’t quite as he remembers it, but there are enough familiar faces and shops to turn him into a proper tour guide. When they stop for lunch at a soup place and Mozu smiles at him with her first taste of the local spice that was missing from their engagement meal, a few other villagers recognize Saizo and drag the couple over to their seats.

He was never friends with these men, but the recognition in their eyes and the boiled fish still in his bowl warms him nonetheless. The cruelty of Nohr and the rage of Hoshido can’t touch happier memories of these acquaintances. They’re delighted to meet Mozu. She introduces herself with the appropriate nervous smile, he growls the appropriate warnings when one fisherman kisses her hand, and overall it’s probably the most appropriate introduction to his town he could have hoped for.

Eventually, however, talk turns to local news and local deaths. The wives of his acquaintances beckon Mozu over to them and before long, Saizo hears girlish giggles and encouraging babble breaking through his own circle of sobriety. Mozu has had blood on her hands, he wants to tell the wives; she doesn’t need to leave the conversation for the sake of her delicate nerves. But in the middle of learning that his childhood friend has recently joined the fight against Nohr as a vigilante fighter, Saizo darts his eyes over to Mozu and sees her laughing, mouth unabashedly grinning and eyes crinkling, and he decides not to let his bitterness affect this moment.

They stay too long at the soup place. The sun is setting when they toss the door curtains aside and spill out into the emptying streets. Saizo had anticipated not making it back in time, though he’s not happy about it, but Mozu is still talking to the wives and she looks deep in conversation. His own talks with the locals are dwindling into awkwardness until one of them suggests he take up the cottage the vigilante fighter left behind, at least for the night.

He's about to decline when Mozu gasps. His muscles tense, but no, she’s only gasping at something a smug-looking wife has just said, and he realizes he’s in no shape to walk back to the army with her. Besides, the idea of a private bath sound enticing, and the same acquaintance informs him that the cottage has been kept clean and they can send someone running a hot bath within the hour.

Mozu is the one who breaks out of her cluster of women and accepts the invitation. Their friends guide them through the village and say goodbye, goodbye, good night, good bye, and suddenly it’s just the two of them in a two-room cottage, silent except for the chirping of summer cicadas in the night air.

* * *

 

Someone had been sent ahead to prepare the bath for him, but they had taken their time in arriving, and so Saizo is submerged in what used to be steaming water. Hiding.

He flicks water droplets off his fingers in the same gesture that would send a shuriken flying, and the water spits through the air, splattering on the edge of the tub. Mozu has said she’ll wait for her turn with the bath. He wasn’t certain if he should have offered to share. He still isn’t certain what he’ll offer when he exits the tub.

He rakes a wet hand across his face, rises, reaches for the towel left for him. It’s safely wrapped around his waist when he returns to the main room of the cottage. Saizo doesn’t know what he’d hoped for—a reaction, a turned away face—but when he sees his wife curled up on the bed, still in her day’s clothing except for her boots, he knows it wasn’t this.

The smalls go on quickly, the sheets rustle only slightly when he slides underneath them. Saizo closes his eyes, is reaching to stroke her hair when he hears her breathing. It’s not the regular, deep breaths of sleep to which he’s become accustomed. She’s awake. She’s awake, and she’s inching up the bed, closer and closer, until her body is lying flush against his.

He can hear his heart pounding, exposed, through his bare chest.

Mozu sighs once, worms her way backwards, navigating the last hair’s breadth of space between their bodies. He rests his head on the top of hers, wraps his left arm around her, but her breath hitches and no, this isn’t what she wants.

His heart is pounding _so hard_ , Saizo is sure she must know.

She touches his hand where it rests against her hip, and his eyes flash open. Mozu looks up at him, a characteristic flush visible on the top of her cheeks, but that’s all he can see. Her eyes meet his, don’t look away, as she brings his hand up, up, away from her hip and up, up her side and around to where the fabric of her dress stretches over her small breasts. She looks at him, he exhales, and she squeezes her hand against his hand against her _breast_ and they’re alone and they’re not tired and—

Saizo rolls her onto his chest and captures her lips with his own. She mewls with delight, or excitement or nerves, and kisses him back enthusiastically. His right arm wraps itself around her back, fingers brushing against the edge of her waist, and the hand she was guiding now needs no further encouragement. The swell of her left breast fits perfectly underneath his palm, and he kneads the cloth there as he trails wet kisses down her jaw, her neck, the dip in her throat. Mozu is reaching to kiss the parts of his face she can reach, and her lips press themselves against his bad eye oh-so-gently, his good eye, the curve of his nose.

Her skin tastes like the air of his hometown, like wild water and fresh air. He laves attention on her collarbones as his right hand moves to move her bodice aside. She’s giggling by the time he gets to fumbling with the fabric ties on her dress, and he drags her down to seal the giggles inside with a kiss on her mouth. Mozu quiets, softens in his arms, but her fingers trail down the skin of his chest until they meet the spun threads of their borrowed bedsheets. Wherever she touches makes him twitch or catch his breathing, but when she pulls down the sheets and wiggles free of her loosened dress and his embrace, he’s sure his lungs don’t function properly for half a heartbeat.

His wife, her knees clamped tight around his waist, no dress and no breastband, grins at him with only a hint of a shaky smile. She’s glorious before him, frizzy ponytails not quite managing to hide her pink nipples, and when Saizo tries to reach for her to taste her, touch her in all her glory, she catches his grabby wrists in her small hands and pins them to the pillow on each side of his head.

Saizo’s breathing gets heavy, heavier as she peppers kisses down the side of his neck, his chest, dips her tongue in his bellybutton and he hisses, twitches and Mozu chuckles. She releases his hands when she can’t reach anymore, but he doesn’t even make to grab for her because he feels her uncertain fingers slipping inside his smalls.

It takes only a second for her to drag them down, it takes only a second for him to wonder what she talked about with the wives, but it seems to take a very long time for her light fingers to brush the underside of his length. The sound he makes is almost pained, and she stops for a terrible moment. The sight of her, his wife, _Mozu_ crouched over his hips all but unclothed, meeting his gaze with a wordless question, is enough for him to gasp, “ _Please_.”

How he expects her to understand—he doesn’t know. But she does, and she smiles, and when her lips part and she takes him into his mouth in one unpracticed go, he tries and succeeds in not bucking. He does not succeed in muffling his groan.

Mozu continues slowly, unhurriedly, but not nervously. Saizo’s good eye keeps slipping shut with each pull, but he wants to watch, wants to see the fascination in her eyes change to pleasure. This feels selfish—and such a _wonderful_ sort of selfish—and even more selfishly, he knows he will not last long. He reaches out a blind hand, finds her hair, pushes against the top of her head. She misunderstands and takes him whole, cupping just underneath, and he manages to moan his true intentions before—

Mozu stops, and his skin is screaming at her to continue. He gestures her toward him in between shaking breaths and she crawls up to meet him, grinning before she places a kiss against the corner where his lips meet, then on the lips properly. When Saizo reaches between her legs and she gasps into his mouth, he holds her against him so he can feel every inch of her against every inch of him. He grinds against her left hip, sucks her lower lip in between his teeth, changes the angle of his fingers.

She cries out at one point, and he pauses, but Mozu is quick to grab his hand and pull it just so, moving his fingers against her most sensitive spot in her chosen rhythm and speed. It isn’t long before she drops her hand and Saizo continues, watching her eyes flicker shut, her chest heave, her fingers reach out to grab at his shoulders, feeling her nails sink into his skin.

Her moans escalate, her eyes squeeze shut, and Mozu collapses against him, shuddering. He withdraws his fingers once she bats his hand away, and she presses her lips to that spot underneath his ear that always makes him hiss and he knows he can’t end the night like this. Mozu mumbles contented praise in his ear and moves her fluid limbs to straddle him once more.

And when she recovers, when they slide together and she rakes her nails over his abdomen and cries his name, when he spills himself into her whispering _Mozu, Mozu, Mozu_ against her neck, Saizo knows there can be no more glorious woman than her.

* * *

 

The morning is less uncertain, fiercer; Saizo won’t admit to his embarrassment when they finally dress and leave the cottage only to see a basket full of breakfast just outside the door.

He does not hesitate to hold Mozu’s hand on the walk back up the path. She rocks the breakfast basket in the crook of her free arm as they chat. In the moments of silence, she catches him remembering and gives him not very shy but rather coy looks, and he wonders for the rest of the day how she knew he was smiling when he’s still wearing his mask.

Jakob teases him the moment they step foot in Hoshido Castle, and Saizo is about to silence him when out of the corner of his eye he sees Mozu surrounded by a group of nosy girlfriends. The moment Mozu covers her giggles with her hands, flicks her eyes his direction, and catches him looking at her, Saizo decides it’s worth a little teasing just to see her wink at him.

 


End file.
